Chapter 542 The Emperor of the Ming Dynasty booby-trapped
Zhu Yihai was a little dizzy.
This feeling was good, a strange and familiar feeling, and he felt as if he was flying in the sky.
When he shook his head to wake up a little, he remembered where he was.
He was 70 to 80% drunk and was taking a nap at this time.
He shook his head again, washed his hands after finishing, and looked at the bronze mirror on the table. He was indeed drunk, his face was red, and his mouth smelled of alcohol.
This reminded him of that time and space. On weekends, he would often meet up with friends to sit down, sometimes drinking tea, sometimes drinking. When he got into the mood, he would also get half drunk. The slightly smoky feeling could always make people forget.
trouble.
But since he came here, he rarely drinks alcohol, usually just a few symbolic sips, and will never let himself get drunk again.
He straightened his clothes in the mirror and went out. There were servants waiting outside. As he walked through the corridor, there was a loud noise in the hall.
Many princes and ministers were raising their glasses.
Well, he remembered, today is New Year.
Shaotian's second year went very smoothly, with the offensive and defensive forces changing, and there were no major battles in the second half of the year. Under his leadership, Ming Dynasty completely established its foothold, and even gradually counterattacked.
Wang's industry is not resting on its laurels, ZTE is making progress.
The Tatars are in a bit of trouble. Last year, four Tatar princes died in a row. Especially the sudden death of the emperor's father and the regent caused another wave of internal strife in the center of Manchuria.
Jiang Quan raised troops in Datong, and the Tatars mobilized their elite troops to quell the rebellion.
As a result, the troops besieged Datong for several months. Not only were they unable to break through Datong, but they suffered many casualties. Even the anti-Qing wave in Shanxi continued one after another.
Geng Zhongming successfully reopened Dongjiang Town in Pi Dao.
Shen Tingyang, the governor of Liaodong, seized all the cover, restoration, and gold, and sent troops to seize Jiulian City on the Yalu River and Phoenix City on the tributary Caohe River.
Easy to attack and defend.
Now the Tatars are not only on the defensive in Xu, Ying, and Jinan in Shandong, but also in Wuchang and Jingxiang in Huguang and can only passively defend.
Even after winter came, the Ming army did not withdraw the garrison of Juehua Island in Ningyuan.
When the ice thickened, the Tatars wanted to repeat the situation when Yuan Chonghuan defended Ningyuan. They sent troops on horseback to cross the sea ice and landed on Juehua Island, which was 18 miles offshore. They massacred 7,000 soldiers and civilians on the island and captured 200,000.
The old story of Shi Liangcao.
As a result, it failed this time.
Didn’t the Ming Dynasty know that the sea ice on Juehua Island would freeze in winter? Didn’t he know that he could ride a horse directly to the island?
But why did they retreat from Haizhou last year but stay on Juehua Island in western Liaoning this year?
Because this year is different from previous years, the Ming army came well prepared.
Before the freezing weather, we had been renovating Juehua Island for more than half a year. We not only repaired the original grain storage city, but also restored the city that was about one mile long from north to south, about half a mile wide from east to west, more than three feet high and two feet wide at the bottom.
It was reinforced and two new bastions, one large and one small, were built outside the city.
The large bastion is outside the north gate and leads directly to the outer port. It can not only protect the transportation channel, but also act as an external defense for the north gate.
There were originally two gates on the south wall, which connected with the dragon's neck, and now a small bastion has been added. The main island is originally wide at both ends and narrow in the middle, like an irregular gourd, hanging alone in the sea.
Build a bastion and a fort outside the south gate, so you can naturally defend it.
When Juehua Island fell during the Battle of Ningyuan, it was mainly because Ningyuan City was surrounded and could not be reinforced, and also because the island was mainly composed of naval soldiers who were not good at infantry fighting.
Moreover, their defensive strategy at that time was to break the ice, breaking the ice every day, trying to keep an ice trench out, but the weather was too cold at that time, and it froze here and there, so the Qing army came and had no defense, and finally the whole army was annihilated.
But the Ming army had no intention of using sea water ice to defend the city, and even transferred naval ships to Lushun or Qingdao Liangbu Freeze Port in advance before freezing.
Zhu Yihai personally drew up the Juehua defense plan, and stationed an entire imperial camp on the island, with 5,000 soldiers and 1,800 auxiliary troops. They had shipped them by sea in advance, and also stored enough gunpowder, artillery shells, grain, grass and other supplies.
Many cannons were shipped.
This was originally a poison pill deliberately designed to lure the enemy.
Just waiting for the Qing army to attack once the ice freezes.
Once the ice freezes, there will be a freezing period of several months. Juehua Island hangs alone on the sea. Can the Tatars resist the temptation to annihilate this group of troops? What's more, there have been successful precedents before.
Before the battle began, the Ming army transported all the people on the island, including those from Liaodong who had been brought back from western Liaoning, to Shandong and other places.
There are only 6,080 soldiers on the island.
At the end of November, the sea froze and the island was frozen.
The Tatars mobilized twelve cavalry teams as the vanguard and rushed to Juehua Island.
Later, the Jin cavalry advanced on ice.
The preparations for landing at Mohekou to seize the island went very smoothly. The Ming army did not send anyone to break the ice at all. They successfully arrived near Mohekou and prepared to go ashore and capture the city in one fell swoop.
As a result, when they arrived, they discovered that there was an extra fortress here.
The fortress is not big, it is just a bastion. It looks very irregular, and there are even some separated and protruding forts. The walls are not high, and the trenches are also dry trenches.
The Qing generals did not take the fortress that appeared unexpectedly seriously.
An isolated city, so what if we add a fortress?
However, when they charged forward on horseback, the cannons on the bastion were firing. The firepower was so fierce that they even killed one of the leaders, Baya Lazhangjing, in the first round.
This is a forward general.
They also used the same tactics used to deal with the Ming army's Guan Ning Jin defense line, even treating it as a small island town. Unexpectedly, this was a new defensive strategy based on the imperial camp's new tactics.
Although the bastion is not large, it is equipped with 4,000 auxiliary soldiers, including a whole battalion of 500 cavalry.
More importantly, there are a large number of artillery in this bastion, especially the matching is very particular. Cannons, long cannons, rotary cannons, etc. are of various types, including heavy, long and near. They are built through bastions, corner platforms, etc.
It has a multi-level, three-dimensional artillery defense system with a large number of musketeers.
Responsible for guarding Juehua Island was a new imperial camp built by the emperor, Tianxiong Town, with Lu Xiangguan as the commander-in-chief.
This is a new type of imperial camp. To say they are new means that it is a unit equipped with a large number of firearms, but unlike the artillery units like Shenji Town, they are infantry.
In other infantry camps, one battalion has four posts, one post has eight teams, and each post has one or two teams of muskets. The best equipment is at most two teams of muskets, one team carrying muskets, and one team of small cannons. The other four teams are all
Swords, spears, bows and arrows are different, but the Tianxiong army is different.
The Tianxiong Army has ten military battalions in one town, including not only one cavalry battalion, but also an artillery battalion, eight infantry battalions with four standards of the two associations, and four sentries in each battalion. In addition, there are also sentinel soldiers and soldiers.
It is the sentinel level, with two teams of cavalry, two teams of artillery, two teams of heavy guns, and then six teams of muskets.
The eight teams under the fourth sentry were equipped with four teams of muskets, two teams of long guns, one team of small cannons and one team of heavy guns.
Even the two spearmen are equipped with three-eyed muskets. Although they are inferior to muskets, they can fire three shots in a row at close range. After firing, they can be used as maces and iron bones, or even equipped with guns and swords, and can also be used as stabs.
gun.
The emperor prepared five hundred thousand kilograms of gunpowder for them.
What is this concept?
These gunpowder can be used for Tianxiong Town. There is no need to consider the gunpowder reserve. If the gunpowder is released, the gunpowder can be used for at least ninety days.
This is calculated based on the amount of one hundred shots per musketeer per day. One kilogram of high-quality gunpowder can supply a musket to complete forty or fifty shots. A soldier consumes two kilograms of gunpowder per day. Even if
Five thousand people all took up muskets to fight, and each of them fired a hundred rounds. That was only 10,000 kilograms that day.
In fact, no matter how fierce the battle is, it cannot reach this level.
Although artillery charges are much more than bullets, the number of shots fired is also much less.
The emperor fully considered the demand and stocked up enough artillery, muskets, shells, lead bullets, and gunpowder in advance.
There are even incendiary bombs, grenades, stone bombs, etc.
There are two bastions, the big bastion can house 5,000 people, and the small bastion can also house 3,000 people.
On average, each soldier was equipped with one hundred kilograms of gunpowder, and two hundred kilograms of lead at a two-to-one ammunition ratio.
The first wave of attack by the Qing army was a cavalry raid.
Twelve teams of cavalry, totaling 1,200, came over to kill them.
As a result, because the landing area was too dense, the artillery on the bastion was directly replaced by shotguns. Some were canned, some barreled, and some directly packed in cloth bags, and all kinds of iron sheets, nails, etc. were blasted, but it was
It can sweep a large area in one go.
The unlucky Baya Lazhangjing was hit by a shotgun filled with iron sheets and nails in a tin can. The tin can came out of the barrel and spread out in a fan shape, directly knocking down his group of a hundred people.
, about eighty people were swept down, twenty or thirty people died on the spot, and another thirty or forty people were seriously injured.
And this is only the beginning.
Cannons and heavy cannons continuously blasted shotshells from the bastion's fort, falling into the dense Qing cavalry. The long cannons mounted on the second-tier fort were smaller than the cannons.
, but the barrel is slender, its range is longer, and it can also fire shotguns.
The ones placed in the front row are rotary cannons (France machines), stone-shooting cannons, etc.
There are even many city wall guns, which are small guns that are larger than ordinary guns, weighing about forty or fifty pounds each, with a longer barrel, placed on a rotating bracket, and equipped on the city wall. Their biggest advantage is to block attacks.
, especially shooting enemy commanders, signal troops, gunners, etc.
This kind of gun has a fast rate of fire, a wide shooting angle, high accuracy, consumes far less ammunition than conventional artillery, and does not require many people to operate.
It has a long range and can penetrate thick armor. No matter how thick the armor is, it is vulnerable to these city wall guns and cannons.
In the frosty wind, the Tatars' 1,200 cavalry surprise attack was quickly defeated and collapsed.
When they tried to turn around and escape, the cavalry battalion came out in time. The cavalry were also equipped with muskets and sabers, and beat the drowned dogs in the back.
In the end, 1,200 people desperately fled to the shore. Eighteen miles of sea ice left countless corpses. In the end, only a hundred people fled back to the shore.
This battle can be said to have stunned the Tatars.
The Tatars in Ningyuan City were extremely angry and refused to accept such a defeat.
He stopped making sneak attacks and directly mobilized tens of thousands of troops to attack by force.
In coordination with infantry and cavalry, they also built large ice ships, dragging artillery behind them.
This time we cautiously arrived in front of the island, with the shield car in front, the artillery mounted on the wooden turret, and the musketeers and archers were called in to press forward step by step.
Prepare for a hard attack.
But as soon as the Tatars blew the attack horn, the Ming army's artillery fired first.
This time, the long artillery was specifically focused on the artillery positions of the Qing army. The first to show off its power was the 18-pound long artillery. It had a longer range, more accuracy, and higher safety performance. Its destructive power was enough to destroy the enemy's soil within the effective range.
Barriers, wooden fences, etc.
The Tatars were not aware of the strength of the Ming army's artillery on Juehua Island. They carelessly pushed the artillery directly into their attack range, but they did not know that this completely exposed their artillery to the range of the Ming army's long artillery, and even
This distance is still their strongest range.
The Tatars just laid wooden rafts on the ice as a fort, and simply built a wall of ice packs outside, and they were ready to join the battle.
As a result, dozens of Ming army's long cannons unleashed their might. In the first round of bombardment, the ice wall of a Tatar red cannon was hit.
Then the Ming Army gunner adjusted the parameters, and several more shells accurately landed on the cannon within the ice enclosure. This was also a cannon of about 18 pounds, but its performance was far behind the artillery of the Ming Army's Zhoushan Chang Artillery Factory.
This 18-pound long gun is also one of the main guns. It is commonly used in city defense, field battles, and even on naval ships. It has high performance, good quality, and has a resounding title.
Krupp Tenxiong General Cannon.
Not only was he made a general, he was also made a count, with the title of Krupp.
And it did not live up to expectations. One after another, the Tatar red cannons were named by Krupp.
Each Tatar heavy artillery faced bombardment from more than ten Ming army artillery pieces, including several Krupps with extremely high accuracy.
The Tatars did not expect that the Ming army's artillery was so powerful. Their artillery position was very simple, consisting of wooden platoons on the ice and an ice wall surrounding it.
It's still very far forward, completely within Krupp's advantageous range.
Not many guns were fired.
The ten red cannons of the Tatars were all blown away.
Without the red cannon, other Tatar cannons were unable to enter the firing range. Directly outside their firing range, they were continuously bombarded by the Ming Army's Krupps.
The Ming army's cannons and heavy artillery were replaced with shotgun shells, and they unleashed their firepower on the Qing army in front of them.
The Tatars also equipped shield carts according to the firepower of the Ming army in the past, pushing shields to cover the infantry. As a result, the artillery of the Ming army today is several times or even dozens of times that of the Ningyuan War.
The turret of the bastion not only provides an excellent shooting perspective, but also has no blind spots, especially since it is located high up, with overlapping firepower.
Artillery washes the ground.
The Tatars were scattered.
At first, they continued to attack in twos and threes, but at this time, the defender of the bastion immediately ordered the cannon to stop the attack and switch to the wall gun range.
Precise blocking from long distances.
Even closer, there are musketeers, and even closer, there are less powerful but more numerous musketeers.
That distance of a hundred steps is a complete casualty line.
When they finally got tired of it and rushed closer, they discovered that this bastion was not an ordinary square city wall with only one wall.
It is a three-dimensional defense. Although the walls are not high, there are several trenches, embankments, corners, bastions, and forts. No matter where they stay, they will be attacked.
If you rush forward, you will truly enter hell, and there is no way to survive.
They don't know the practicality of this kind of bastion, which has shown great power on the battlefields of Europe for thirty years. Although it seems simple, it is a real battlefield meat grinder.
It is easy to repair and the cost is low, but as long as there are enough soldiers to defend the fort and sufficient gunpowder supplies, even three to five thousand people can calmly face the siege of three to five times or even ten times the enemy and defend it for half a year.
No problem for years.
This is a war hedgehog armed to the teeth and full of spikes.
The Tatars had beaten up the Ming army before, but how had they ever encountered anything like this?
Their self-proclaimed fine cotton armor could not withstand the volleys of guns and cannons, and every one of the dozens of shield vehicles was destroyed. Even the artillery they carried were shot down due to carelessness.
The Tartar Bajra were good cavalrymen and practiced archery, but they wore thick armor, carried strong bows, and loaded heavy arrows, but they had no way to deal with the Ming troops on the fortress.
The damage they caused to the Ming army was extremely limited, but the Ming army could condescendingly bombard them from all angles.